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Tech & Misc Ramblings…

1. Youtube has become the defacto innovation killer in the video space. Unfortunately for the industry, if Youtube doesn’t adopt it, it doesn’t exist. Its MicroSoft Windows circa late 80’s, early 90’s all over again.

2. I just booted Firefox to the curb on my PC and replaced it with Chrome (Yes I see the irony of killing Youtube above and pushing Google Chrome). I got tired of Firefox slowing my computer to a crawl or freezing it completely. Chrome is fast. Of course its far from perfect. If it doesnt get support for RSS feeds very, VERY quickly I may be forced to reconsider IE and its new version

3. For all its faults, I am still hooked on my Sidekick. Nothing beats the keyboard. I have tried every other mobile out there and I can still type at least 2x as fast with far fewer mistakes on my trusty Sidekick

4. If the fact that the internet is not ever discussed as being integral, or even part of the solution to our current economic woes isn’t proof that it has become nothing more than a valuable utility, I don’t know what is.

5. NBA Live 09 is becoming a management tool in the NBA.

6. I bought and tried a Kindle, it didn’t work the way I do. Gave it to my wife and she loves it.

7. Its sad, but every major tech magazine that I grew up on is gone PC Week, Byte and now PC Mag among many, many others. It used to be fun to go to the bookstore to see if there were any new magazines. At last week’s CES the magazine racks were empty. Nothing besides the daily. Big time Bummer.

8. I’ve increased the number of magazine and newspaper subscriptions I get. Its a matter of principle. I want to see them survive. Should I go Nascar and get a jacket with the logos of their advertisers ? On the topic of newspapers. Once they all declare chapter 11, they can get their cost structures in place to support far lower readership levels. At that point, probably less than 5 years and working from a low revenue base, we will be talking about the renaisance of the newspaper business. It wont ever reach pre internet levels, but it will be considered a “new growth business”.

9. If you havent tried our Icerocket Big Buzz feature, do it. Its a one page chronological summary of everything thats being said about anything. Its addictive and the RSS feed works (except in my Chrome of course) .

Good Day Mark! I’m with a Marketing Research company located in Frisco, Texas and noticed in the Dalas Morning News that you had some interest in discussing Acquisition Research with a full-service Marketing company. I would like the opportunity to set-up an In-Person meeting with you with my boss Ed Trachier, OnTarget Parners, Co-Founder and CEO in the next two week. You can reach me at 214-244-9100. Thanks in advance and look forward to hearing back from you.

PS My son Jason Gentry knows you and has enjoyed sitting near you at the games. Haa

I wouldn’t agree about YouTube. I work really tightly in that category and that’s not what I’m seeing at all. What’s killing the innovation is the same thing that’s also creating #4 on this list.

@Kris, no offense but when I hear somebody say that, it reminds me of how unfamiliar people are about what the web is and what it is here to do. Print media isn’t going to die so much as it’s going to change. The industry is badly struggling with adapting and adopting to the IP platform – it doesn’t have to be this way. We should want to help it, because we’re talking about jobs and a huge part of the market that will cause pain for everybody if it did go away. Don’t see it as “print” or “online” but as information – media – and understand that its distribution channel is shifting. That’s it. It will be a very long time before any blog can become what Conde Nast is in the market. In my opinion, we need to help that industry better adapt.

The paddleboat was replaced with the steam engine but one factor stayed the same: it was still a boat. Just my .2

I am feeling the same way on Firefox as well. I like chrome a lot and it does run much faster but it causes problems with some hardware (scrolling on some mice) and others you mentioned. I too find myself drawn back to IE time and time again. The full screen is sexier, pages seem to load faster and the only thing I ever thought it lacked to Firefox was tabs which they implemented not too long ago.
I just wish Microsoft was more aggressive in the web services space. Maybe they will make pull something out of their ass soon.

NBA Live (and the other EA sports games) are interesting as management and scouting toold. The NBA Live game itself is actually quite poor. NBA 2K9 is a much better gaming experience, but as far as using it as a management tool, I wonder how long until GMs around the league have an XBox in their office for ummm….scouting purposes. 🙂

Hey Mark would like to offer up my fav computer mag, (although I surprised you don’t already read it). http://www.maximumpc.com/ Was Boot Magazine in the ‘90s, they post most articles on line now also.

regarding nba live 09 as a management tool, they added this feature called “Dynamic DNA”. It basically makes use of statistics like how often a player would drive left/right and shoot from which spots. These stats are used to break down ho wa player scores. These stats are also updated after each game i believe. youtube that feature you will see how you can have say… with these 5 spurs players on court in a defensive set, and with dirk holding the ball at the top of the key, how likely will he be able to score and how?

Is it just me or does anybody else think that the quality behind Youtube videos is getting worse and worse. They say they offer a higher quality stream but it’s still pretty low compared to other sites like Vimeo.

You were up late with lots of educational ramblings. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and passion. You keep us all thinking and growing. The world is a better place because of you. The Mavs played great in Philly too. Just had a tough time in Boston. It’s always great to see them play.

I’m surprised more people haven’t reacted to your tip about Icerocket Big Buzz search – it’s amazing! I lead an internet marketing team and we’re always looking for new ways to monitor trends online. Icerocket just nailed it.

Why doesn’t Google have a similar search feature? Maybe they’re too busy trying to define the “ideal” search result instead of just saying “here, this is what people are saying about that topic you just searched on.” Google Blogs search doesn’t even come close to this.

I disagree about newspapers and print in general. This industry will die. Its just a matter of time. I’m willing to cede that it may be 20 years, but its a matter of time. The digital revolution is just starting. Just as paper checks are a thing of the past (remember the last time you paid for dinner with one of those?), I think we will see paper publications dwindle and disappear.

Although I’m not Cuban, I would put a guess out there how Live impact NBA management. The first thing you need to understand is that Live has AI that was built into that is based of the real players tendencies. You can watch a Demo at YouTube.

With real life AI on all players, Live can be used as a Simulation Game (Simulating seasons or individual games 1000’s of times) predicting team and individual performance. If the NBA is using it, I assume the technology has produced moderately accurate results in creating a range of expectations. Live allows its users to put players on new teams and see how both the team and player respond, meaning that teams can run projections on impacts of potential moves.

Cuban should be grinning ear to ear with the success of NBA LIVE 09 in becoming a tool of NBA management. The company behind the AI proclaims you to be an investor. Perhaps the company will become if not already the Google/ESPN of its industry. Who knows maybe in the near future the technology usage will grow to the point where college coaches will be able to use it for recruiting high school athletes.

EA’s NBA Live is as close most of us, self proclaimed GM gurus, will ever be to managing an NBA roster. Live 09 is a large step beyond fantasy basketball.

Hey Mark. Lots of speculation and thought there but one thing you mentioned is a no brainer. NASCAR,NASCAR,NASCAR. It has not reached its apex in profit yet by a long shot. I used to think some of my friends were crazy watching it back when there were just highlights on t.v. When bootleggers sons and grandsons were still doing it. With your money dude its a sure shot. The owners of cars have teams of cars now. The drivers are forming thier own teams when they stop racing, if the can afford it. Now that the Cubs are no longer an interest you should check out some of the numbers on that sport. Just remember me and get me some free tickets when you cash in. Thanks for the thoughts.

Like some of the others here, I’d be very interested in hearing more about your thoughts on #5 – how NBA ’09 is becoming a management tool. Have you found this to be true as of this year, or have you been using earlier versions of the game in the same way? Have you heard this from other front office personnel around the league? In what way is it truly a tool? Gaming has certainly immersed itself within a number of different elements of our culture – from sports to music to movies, and even to business and government. I’d really like to hear your insight on the evolution of gaming from entertainment to entertainment + valued resource. Thanks.

Ok, Mark, I’ve given you grief regarding the JR Smith issue and harrased you about the reason for not buying the Cubs so I now extend an olive branch. I have to give you big props. You’ve earned them. This IceRocket is very good. I am confident that I will use it extensively in the future. Well done.

MC,
2 things:
1. Chrome is great. I haven’t tested this out though, but it may be the solution to your RSS issue:http://www.feeds.ramisp.org/

2. The Mavs played a great game last night. Even though it was against one of NBA’s worst teams, they still looked alot better and seem to be clicking…especially when Kidd is the one taking care of the ball.

Here’s the info on that RSS link:
“On the web page http://www.feeds.ramisp.org, there are two bookmarklets available: “View RSS Feed” and Auto-Detect RSS.” Drag each of these bookmarklets to Chrome’s bookmark bar. Then, whenever you’re on a page that has an RSS feed, you just have to hit the “Auto-Detect RSS” button. This will take you to a page where the feed is displayed along with several auto-subscription links up at the top. Alternately, you can just hit “view RSS feed,” if you want to see the RSS feed in the browser, but this option didn’t always work in our tests.

One of the problems with the ramisp.org bookmarklets, though, is the limited choice of RSS readers they offer underneath the “Subscribe Now!” section. Currently, you have the option to subscribe using Google, Pageflakes, My Yahoo!, and Netvibes. Although that covers many of the popular readers, there are still several that were left out.” source- http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/finally_-_get_rss_support_for_google_chrome.php

#2 I use all the browsers, each for their own specific qualities. firefox is good for the plugins, especially seo related stuff. chrome is fast, good with video, and flash based crap. IE is pretty much the workhorse for me though, it not really good for anything specific but its ok for everything.
i have to say though, i am worried about the number of new browsers gaining popularity from a programming standpoint. i am constantly having to check browser after browser to make sure what i create renders correctly in X browser. i even starting to get a lot of traffic from people using play stations os, not to mention mobile devices o plenty.

Thanks for pointing the obvious, Google is the new Microsoft, albeit worse.

Have you seen any innovation in search in the last 10 years? Thanks to godaddy, with all word combinations registered as domain names, we have to use search to go to a new website. We can’t guess a website name, or afford to spell it wrong, we might end up in a malware site. Ofcourse, Google exploits this to show you an advertisement.

You have documented the video space very well, I don’t need to add more.

Mark, there are many bright engineers willing to offer a solution, but they can’t get any funding from the Friends and Family network of Silicon Valley VCs. Why don’t you invest a few millions and encourage innovation?

Just my opinion, but I use Google Reader to aggregate my RSS feeds (or view them individuallly if I prefer). I bet it works well in Chrome… although I’m still a Firefox user with the same concerns about speed.

Agree with you 100% on the Sidekick. I have the LX, and frankly, the UX is atrocious, but the hardware is really well built, and I could write a PhD thesis on that keyboard.

I would argue the internet has ALREADY proven integral to solving our economic (and sundry other) woes, via its instrumental role in the election of President Obama. As it grows, the web will lay waste to gov’t inefficiencies and bullshit the same way it has for business–it will save the world whether we like it or not!

Please stop whining about YouTube. They’re subsidizing the video hosting costs for more than half the internet. If they want to keep providing such a valuable service for us ofr free, please let them. If at any time, they start actually abusing their market share, people will switch somewhere else for their video watching needs. We know, without a doubt, there will be a steady stream of up and comers trying to take down the top dog.

Hey Mark – I switched to chrome a few months ago because firefox is too bulky and slows down my laptop. Why not just using something like Google Reader for RSS? Google does a great job with the product.

Re: #4, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Given your blogging platform, why don’t you get the discussion started right here on blogmaverick? I would like to see some innovative ideas that you must have in mind.

I think about Malcomb Gladwell and his thoughts on magazines vice “instant” news sources. He rightly points out that mags have the opportunity to ruminate over something and dive deeper than most other outlests: thus providing more information (and less data.